one up to see if it was edible, and here I am. No thanks,” she added bitterly, “to you. How could you?”
Theo gave her a pleasant smile. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the same way you made Amanda believe we were having an affair. You might care to explain that.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” She was massaging the soles of her feet. “If I hadn’t, you’d have stayed there, right?”
“Yes,” Theo said crisply. “And why the hell not?”
“Because we need you here.” She picked up her shoes and threw them across the room. “Here, give me the compact, I need to do my face. I spent four nights sleeping on a bench in the bus station.”
He hesitated, then snapped the compact shut and tossed it to her. She caught it one-handed, without looking. “I may forgive you,” she said, “if you bring me food, right now. And coffee,” she added, with a catch in her voice. “You know how long it’s been since I tasted coffee?”
So he went to the kitchen, where he found Call-me-Bill busy at the stove.
“Potato dauphinoise,” he said. “How’s it going?”
Theo hesitated. Of course, he’d get all the news from Matasuntha soon enough. “Hopeful signs,” he said.
“Great.” Call-me-Bill poured cream into the pan from a large jug. “How hopeful?”
“Cautious optimism.”
“That could mean anything,” Call-me-Bill said. “Like, if it wasn’t for cautious optimism, I wouldn’t bother getting out of bed in the morning.”
Theo opened some cupboards until he found a tin of corned beef, which he opened and turned out on to a plate. “Any coffee going?”
Call-me-Bill nodded at a pot on the stove. “Oh, there was a phone call for you. I took a message.”
“Who from?”
“I think he said his name was Captain Zod.”
There was a crash as the plate hit the floor. “Captain—”
“Zod. That’s an Albanian name, isn’t it?”
Theo stooped, gathered up the corned beef with his fingers and stuck it in his pocket. Then he grabbed the coffee pot and ran out to Reception. On the desk was a little yellow sticky: Captain Zod, and a number.
He called the number. It rang and rang.
“What kept you?” she demanded, as he returned breathless to his room. “I was just about to start gnawing the edge of the desk.”
He fished the corned beef out of his pocket. It had crumbled into three clods, which had acquired a surface coating of grime and bits of fluff. She didn’t seem to mind. “Is that coffee?” she asked with her mouth full.
“Yes. Damn, I didn’t bring a cup.”
“No matter.” She grabbed the pot, put the spout in her mouth and tipped her head back. After a long interval of glugging she sighed and wiped her mouth and chin with her wrist. “I think,” she said, “I’ll be all right now. It was close, but—” She stopped, and frowned. “Who are you calling?”
Theo had the phone to his ear. It rang and rang. After fifty-six rings, he gave up.
“Well?”
He sighed and perched on the edge of the desk. “When I was a kid,” he said, “about ten years old, my brother was eleven, we were nuts about Star Trek.”
“Not to worry,” she said. “You grew out of it, that’s the main thing.”
“We used to play this game,” Theo went on. “I was Captain Sherman of the Dauntless. My brother Max was Captain Zod of the Fremulan star destroyer Ob.”
“Really?”
“Mphm.” He handed her the yellow sticky. “The thing is, it was a secret. Nobody else knew.”
She looked at him. “That’s Uncle Bill’s writing.”
“Yup.”
She frowned. “What about your sister? She must’ve known.”
He shook his head. “She hated Star Trek. Star Wars fan.”
“That would explain a great deal. So, not her, then.”
“No.”
“And you tried the number.”
“No reply.”
She took another swig from the coffee pot, then stood up wearily. “Mind out of the way,” she said, elbowing him gently aside so she could sit down at the computer. “Now then.”
“What are you doing?”
“Tracing the call.” She played a piano concerto on the keys, and a screen full of numbers appeared. She glanced down at the yellow sticky and typed. “Uncle Bill has friends in low places. Right, here we are. Your call – oh.”
“What?”
“Came from a payphone in a bar in Caracas,” she said. “Sounds to me like someone’s jerking your chain. You sure it couldn’t be your sister?”
He shook his head. “Thanks for trying.” He sighed, and took her place on the floor. “Why is it,” he said, “I’m never here to take my calls?”
“You ought to get a cellphone,” she replied, tapping keys. “You